The iPhone 4S Assistant: Artificial Intelligence for the masses?
After all the hoopla and mostly-unjustified disappointment over Apple’s release of the new iPhone 4S – instead of the highly anticipated and mythical iPhone 5 – tech journalists are beginning to dissect the most whimsical moment of the Apple product announcement and conference. When the iPhone 4S was introduced by Apple executive Phil Schiller, the media crowd assembled at the company’s Town Hall auditorium in Cupertino was less than enthusiastic in its applause. But then Schiller ceded the stage to Scott Forstall, a senior VP at Apple, who started talking to his iPhone 4S, and it responded accordingly. As the attendees watched and listened to Forstall seemingly carrying on a conversation with his iPhone, the specter of being let down by the lack of iPhone 5 quickly dissipated.
When Scott Forstall asked the new iPhone 4S “Do I need a raincoat today?”, the smartphone confidently replied in a slightly robotic but clear female voice: “It sure looks like rain today.”
Talking on a smartphone is one thing, but talking TO a smartphone and receiving a highly logical and coherent answer is something different. When the iPhone 4S hits stores on October 14, it will ship with Siri, a cool new artificial intelligence (AI) feature demonstrated during Apple’s product announcement. Siri isn’t exactly new; it was once available from iTunes App Store, and it allowed users to ask questions in natural, everyday language. Initially Siri could mostly handle giving information about restaurants and movie theaters. The questions posed to Siri were routed through a network in which they were analyzed for improving the app’s AI.
While some Siri users were excited about the app’s potential, others thought Siri was just a fancy version of GOOG-411, or the way-ahead of its time Portico service from General Magic. But now Siri has matured into Assistant, perhaps the most serious AI project undertaken by Apple in recent years. The voice-controlled Assistant can do a lot more than just look up what’s playing at the local movie theater. Apple’s mobile Assistant will allow iPhone 4S users to control many iOS functions with their voices. From opening apps to composing messages, and from searching the web to setting appointments; the iPhone 4S will only scratch the surface of what Apple has in store in terms of AI development.
In the hands of millions of users, Apple’s mobile Assistant will become a more efficient and knowledgeable AI because it has the capacity to constantly learn. Voice-controlled devices are practically a dime a dozen these days, but they aren’t widely used. The Opera Internet browser, for example, can be controlled by voice. Voice-activated dialing is a feature present in even the most basic Nokia cell phones. Android-powered cell phones already feature a fair amount of voice-control. What was lacking from voice control, until now, was the AI implementation. Now that Apple is bringing AI to the masses with its mobile Assistant for the iPhone 4S, advanced technologies such as speech recognition and smart automation will no longer be confined to the realm of science fiction.
Harold Fanny writes for many blogs on topics related to health, finance, entertainment and technology. He has recently written a guest post on the topic of car insurance and online quote comparison services such as Kanetix.
Check Out These Too:
- Is Apple Becoming More And More Pricey? As Apple gadgets advance in their quality and technology, it is said that consumers are also paying for what they're getting - even more! Apple wins consumers hearts over and…
- How Core ML Will Transform Machine Learning Apps… “This How Core ML Will Transform Machine Learning Apps Development content is for businesses, who are looking forward to developing a machine learning application for their online business. They can…
- Apple Top Designer Wants to Move to UK Apple are well known for their fantastic looking products that have completely revolutionised the industry and now, the top designer for the company is thinking of moving back to the…
- Apple TV Coming Sometime Soon We still do not know a whole lot about the current Apple TV project but according to a number of sources it looks like it will definitely be happening sometime…
- Apple to Offer Free iPhone 4 Cases to Users As soon as the Apple iPhone 4 came out, users started to have problems with dropped calls. No one seemed to know what the problem was, just that they'd be…
- Introducing The Gold Master Version Of iOS 5 Alas, another release post. We are seeing a lot of releases these past few days and weeks don't you think? It's no wonder why there's such a hype. The iOS…
- Mac App Store set to come in January The Apple app store has been a huge hit with the iPhone and iPod touch devices and it now has more than 200,000 applications in which users can download with…
- Apple release new Macbook Air As a lot of you will probably already know, every few months, Apple holds a keynote or press event in which they will often show off a variety of their…
- iPhone Rumors Are Over: Here is the newest iPhone Not just the rumors but the looooooong wait! The newest iPhone is here, but it's not the iPhone 5 but the iPhone in between. It's the iPhone 4s. The iPhone…
- Apple to announce Beatles iTunes Deal Apple are rumoured to be making a big announcement later on today and many people have been speculating as to what they think the announcement will be. As per usual,…
- Apple iPhone 5 release to be held back With the recent release of the iPad 2 from Apple, it is thought that Apple will now be working on the release of the iPhone 5 which has been thought…
- Sources Say iPhone 5 to be released in August The iPhone 5 from Apple has been rumoured for quite some time but there is still some speculation on the release date of the phone. There have been rumours in…
- Apple Planning Media Event in January Today the news broke that Apple is officially working on a major media event at the end of this month. Nobody knows exactly what Apple is planning to announce or…
- The Most Likely iPhone 5 Rumors If there is one gadget that garners more speculation and rumors than any other it's the Apple iPhone. Ever launch so far has seen a marked improvement on the last,…
- Apple iPad 2 to have large speaker and camera There have been a lot of rumours circulating on the internet as to the release of the iPad 2 device from Apple next year. Of course, Apple hasn’t actually confirmed…
- Steve Jobs, the genius who revolutionized the IT industry Steve Jobs has revolutionized IT and entertainment industries and made our lives much easier by the many innovations that he introduced. Not always was the inventor of a new range…
- Report: Apple Partner With Samsung For AMOLED… A Korean paper is claiming that Apple and Samsung will partner up just to bring the latest Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode (AMOLED) display technology to the iPad 3. According to…
- Top Tech News Podcasts for your iPhone or iPod Touch With the slew of new users on the iPhone and iPod touch since the release of the iPhone 3GS, most users are no longer the hardcore Apple fans that were…
- Why Does Nokia Sell More Phones Than Apple? If you compare Nokia and Apple you would naturally think that Apple and its iPhone is more popular than Nokia. You would also have to reconsider once you looked at…
- Apple iPad 2 Event Due Today Every year, Apple always has a variety of new products up their sleeve and in order to let their consumers known about these products, they will hold an event in…
- iPhone 4s Release Date is Confirmed iPhone 4S Release Date is Confirmed It is finally official, after months of waiting, the iPhone 4S release date has finally been made official by Apple at the latest Apple…
- Apple likely to create bigger iPod Touch instead of… It seems Apple is likely to push deeper into low cost mobile computer system and they may release a larger version of iPod Touch player in 2010 instead of creating…
- How to figure out what Apple has in store with the iPhone 5 There are so many rumours regarding the iPhone 5 at the moment that is expected to be released by Apple in the next couple of months, that you might not…
- Apple iPhone 5 Release Date Rumours Continue The Apple iPhone 5 is expected to be released within the next couple of days following the array of online rumours and now, it is claimed that the device will…
- iPhone 5 Scam : Beware on iPhone 5 Pre-order Scam iPhone 5 Scam Apple is plan to announce their next generation iphone 5 on this Tuesday Morning at at Apple’s Headquarters in Cupertino. While so many people worldwide waiting for…
- First Apple Computer Sold for £130,000 Today, Apple is one of the most well known companies in the world and they have a range of products that is extremely extensive and are well known throughout the…
- Apple Executive Responds to Working Conditions Complaints Earlier this week Apple got plenty of negative publicity over their alleged poor working conditions imposed on employees in manufacturing plants around the world. Today Apple's CEO made a public…
- Apple in iPad Trademark Dispute Apple is well known for many electronic products that have revolutionised the industry and one of the most recent products that Apple has released is the iPad device. This is…
- Apple Promises to Crack Down on Rank Fraud Last week Apple announced that they were going to begin cracking down on copycat apps that were simply using others popularity to increase downloads. Today Apple announced a follow up…
- Apple to Launch iPad 2 on February 9 There have been a lot of rumours over the last few months as to when and whether or now Apple are actually going to release the next version of their…